


hyne's gate

by irishais



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: AU, F/M, time compression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-19 05:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29745618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishais/pseuds/irishais
Summary: Time compression lands him in feudal-era Esthar, and at the mercy of the Emperor's daughter... Xu? Seifer supposes he's been involved in weirder things than alternate realities, but he thinks he might like Xu a little better when she doesn't have the power to have him beheaded. AU.
Relationships: Seifer Almasy/Xu
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	hyne's gate

He runs, boots beating against the rocky mountainside, slipping, falling, tumbling down, skin gashing open as his arm clips a boulder in his free fall. It takes Seifer entirely too long to regain his footing, longer than is Garden acceptable, but Garden never trained him for this, never trained him for a mad flight from a madder witch--

She is on his heels, and screaming her death knell. 

Seifer runs and runs and runs, and tries so hard not to look back, Hyperion in its sheath on his back, beating hard against his spine, run boy run. The cliff turns to scraggly forest, the castle recedes in the distance; when he dares to look over his shoulder, the storm is exploding around it, the battle raging on, you can do it, Leonhart, he thinks absurdly, grabbing hold of a tree to keep his momentum around a sharp corner and keep himself from plunging over the edge of an abrupt precipice. Blood drips in his wake, a trail of his scent. Any second now, hellhounds will be after him, baying at his heels, and they will drag him back in pieces. 

He needs to stop, needs to catch his breath, knows that the second he stops, he is dead, because her monsters are nearly as terrifying as she is, ferocious and bigger than the dragons that hide in these hills, nasty beasts. 

Seifer runs, runs, runs. The universe bends, collapses in on itself-- he is on a path on a mountainside and a second later he is in a gray desert hell, and then the mountain is back, the green trees too technicolor-bright. His magic surges in his veins, his heart threatens to explode from his chest. 

Thunder howls like a call to war. 

He roars, wants to draw Hyperion and turn back, kill the witch himself, but this is one fight he knows he will never be able to win. 

It’s up to Leonhart, up to everyone-- all Seifer can do is flee, flee (like the miserable koward that you are, you pathetik kur--)

No, no, no-- he chances a second look over his shoulder, expecting her on his heels, expecting her teeth bared, her claws out, her wings stretched like hell has emptied and the devil is here. The path behind him is empty. 

A lightning strike splits a tree three feet from him, and he hurls himself into the air, over the smoking limb that has crashed in his path. Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop, you cannot stop, he orders himself, you are not allowed to stop--

Kill her, kill her, someone please kill her--

The world folds, folds again, an origami nightmare. His legs feel stuck into the earth, every step like dragging concrete, and when he reaches out to something, anything, the blue gleam of Esthar breaking through the trees, his fingers pull, stretch, turn his hand into a disjointed nightmare parody of what it should be. 

(he knows what it’s called, he knows its name, he hears it echoing like hell unfurled in his skull-- **T I M E K O M P R E S S I O N** , Ultimecia’s venomous sneer at her victory, all existence denied.)

No, no, no-- they can’t fail, they’re the fucking heroes, they’re not allowed to fail--

It is a relief, when the shockwave finally comes, and blows him over the edge. 

(this is the end. finally. he lets himself fall, eyes closed, and embraces death.

forgive me father, for i have sinned.)

\--

She has lost her guard ages ago, somewhere in the warren of paths that cut through the trees, chocobo hooves beating a steady rhythm through the forest at the far edge of the city, and her riding clothes blend with the scenery, hair dark, bird midnight-black and all but invisible in the woods. If she keeps going up, up, she’ll come to the temple of Hyne at the peak, a place of immense power. If she goes left, there is a warren of caves that make for an excellent hiding spot, best when one is attempting to evade the royal guard.

Xu has only been to the peak once, a place that struck her as terribly sad, and haunted. No one goes up there unless there are rituals that call for it-- most of the magic Esthar’s mages work can be handled at any of the dozen ceremonial spaces within the city boundaries. 

However, she’s been to the caves hundreds of times, ever since she was a child and even more willful and stubborn then than she is now about privacy. Her keepers will know to look for her there. So she chooses up-- if nothing else, even if she doesn’t summit the mountain, Xu can lose herself in the altitude for a while, in the peaceful ambient-quiet that nature offers. It is not the palace, and it is not a thousand people begging for her Royal Highness’ attention. 

(She only has so much attention to give; what part of personal space is so hard to understand? Xu just wants to be left alone occasionally, given a bit of slack in the leash that comes with royalty.)

Up she goes, her chocobo slowing and picking his way carefully through the path, the space between the trees irregular and narrow. The quiet is a blessing, falling so abruptly and absolute, that for a while, Xu has trouble pinpointing what is out of place. 

It is only when the stillness is broken by the bird stepping on a twig and snapping it, sending a squirrel skittering away in fright, that Xu realizes what is wrong. 

The birds don’t sing. 

Xu makes a quiet clicking sound, pulling up on the reins to stop her ascent, and turns in her saddle-- bear? Beast? Dragon, maybe, come creeping out of its nest in the middle of the day. But they are mostly on the other side of the mountain, and she has never seen one during daylight hours. 

She’s never seen one, period, save in scrolls of legend, but her father’s men have embellished tales of all the things that haunt these hills. Suddenly, she feels very foolish for having left her guard at a gallop the second they had gotten free of Esthar’s city limits, or at the very least not sneaking out a weapon bigger than a dagger, hidden in her cloak in her saddlebags

At the peak of the mountain, thunder clouds gather. She stares at it in awe-- there is something there, something-- is it a castle, hidden behind the storm? Xu shields her eyes with one hand, and tries to see it better. But the trick of the light is gone with the next flash of lightning, just clouds and a storm once more. Xu turns her mount, back reluctantly down the mountainside-- the last thing she needs is to get caught out here in a downpour, or worse. 

Shadow refuses to obey after a few steps, both feet planting solidly in the ground, quaking with fear, eyes rolling wildly back at her, feathers ruffling and then falling flat against his skull. Terror-- a snake, maybe? He has never been fond of them. But the ground is clear. 

It’s just the storm, it has to be-- but they’ve been caught in downpours before, and thunder has never bothered her companion. 

Xu clicks her tongue again, a different sound to encourage movement, squeezing her knees into his flanks, urging him on. No luck-- he refuses, and shudders his tail feathers in such a way that a lesser rider might have been thrown backwards into the dirt. 

“What’s wrong with you, why won’t you--” She shuts up as her words fill the silence. 

Her voice sounds strange, drawn out like the last warbled notes of a song, and when she lifts her head, the world is...shifting, Shadow’s neck seems longer, the trees are meaner, vicious with their grasping limbs. Something screams. 

The world explodes. 

Shadow bucks backwards in terror, and this time she doesn’t stand a chance, thrown off his back and landing hard onto the ground, pain abrupt, overwhelming at the center of her spine. The bird does not spare her a second glance, just bolts, all its black feathers ruffled in fear and panic-- Xu wants to run after him, but running seems impossible when just sitting upright is a doubtful concept. 

But she makes herself do it anyway, rolling onto hands and knees before she can black out from the hurt, some of it receding very slightly as she forces her limbs into functional order, centering itself as a tight knot somewhere below her ribs. It is more pain than she has ever been in before, whimpering with every breath, but she keeps herself like that until her tongue decides it wants to work again, stammering out the few syllables of a healing spell. 

It is almost enough, the bulk of it receding, leaving only a sharp pain that can't mean anything good, no longer buffered by the worst of the immediate swelling. But it will have to do, long enough for her to scramble back down the hillside and help her _people_ , because the blast has left her ears ringing, every hair on on her body on edge with the static that hangs in the air-- but when she looks up, the mountainside is exactly as it was before, no evidence of any damage anywhere. 

Something thuds in front of her with a grunt, something large tossed from a very great height.

It startles her enough that Xu is on her feet without another thought of her own damage, whirling to look for some sort of cover, half of a basic defensive spell called up before she realizes it is just a body. 

Just a body? 

Xu lets go of the spell, shaking the crackle of the magic out of her fingertips, pushing long hair back from her face where it has been freed unceremoniously from the elaborate updo her ladies in waiting had forced it into this morning. One of her combs has broken, an expensive ornamental thing with rubies and diamonds, sharp when her fingers graze it. Xu yanks it free, placing it between her fingertips like a tiny knife, staring warily at the figure. 

At first, it seems nothing more than pale gray leather, a coat someone has flung from a great distance away, but he moves when she rises and totters a few steps toward it, shifting just slightly. The only sounds he makes are a breath and a whimper. 

If it’s someone come to kidnap her, they’re doing a poor job of it. 

“Hello,” she says, the word croaking out, backed with a slight whimper of her own as it puts undue pressure on her ribs, but out it comes, no distorted echo this time. Xu swallows, tries again. “Hello-- are you alright?” 

No answer. 

Closer inspection confirms it’s a young man, with a striking profile even half-submerged in the dirt, blond hair flat against his head, the red streak of a fresh scar between his eyes. Certainly not a native of Esthar. 

She spares a glance for the mountaintop, fearful of the storm-- but it’s gone, dissipated like it never happened, leaving only blue sky with the usual circle of clouds that linger at the peak, clear enough that Xu can see the outline of the temple from here. What was that, then, if not a trick of weather? Esthar's climate is temperate, most of the year, but she supposes there are stranger things than brief summer rain that comes dark and dissipates just as quickly.

If it was a storm at all; maybe it's part of a ritual her father had ordered performed, some cleansing ceremony or another. Or darker magic, the kind that she is not yet privy to, the secrets she will only be granted when she wears the title empress, and rules over her country. 

Hyne bless us, Xu sighs, and nudges the man in the dirt with the tip of her boot. Nothing. No movement. The lone wince may have been the herald of his passing. 

And wouldn’t that would be wonderful-- what a way to spend her precious moments of freedom from the imperial palace-- Father, guess what I found in the woods this afternoon while ditching my guards? A dead man!

She inches closer, and reaches down to touch his shoulder, shaking him as brusquely as she dares. “Hello--?” 

Abruptly, his eyes open, and he lunges at her, hand reaching out quickly to grab her leg before Xu can retreat. His grip is bone-crushingly strong; with her left leg, she flails out toward his face, a reflexive action that surprises her as much as it seems to surprise him, when the sole of her boot connects with his nose, sending a gush of blood down over his angry mouth. 

Xu wrenches her leg away, scrambling back several feet. She keeps a knife in her saddlebags, small and ceremonial, but sharp and serviceable nonetheless, but her saddlebags are gone along with her chocobo. All she has is the tines of the broken comb-- she holds it up in front of her, ready to lash out.

She is defenseless royalty against a madman. By all rights, she should be terrified, but Xu is mostly just mad, outraged that he would assault someone trying to help him. 

“Who are you? Identify yourself!” she orders, trying to call up the tone her father uses, the one that makes people do as he says immediately, without any hesitation, without any bowing and scraping. Her little bit of fear creeps in, though, a tiny quaver. Xu curses herself for it, and tries to make herself as imposing as possible; difficult, when she barely breaks the five-foot mark. 

“I’ll have you know there are a half dozen imperial guardsmen on their way right now, so I would just... just lay there, if I were you.”

Oh, yes. _That’s_ intimidating. 

\--

He’s hallucinating. He’s hit his head harder than he thought-- or he’s hit his head just hard enough. Xu is standing there in what looks like a ridiculous costume, and she’s threatening him (with, good lord, is that a hairpin?) but there’s no conviction behind it, no authority in her voice that normally makes grown-ass SeeDs piss themselves in fear. 

“Christ, Xu, shut up,” he moans, fingers probing his nose, swearing as they come away more red-stained than expected. His face hurts, cheek tender along with his nose, and the rest of his whole fucking body hurts, but that may have to do with the Almasy-shaped hole he seems to have left in the ground. 

He stands, and pats himself for Hyperion, suddenly not in his grip. He turns wildly, regretting every motion, something is definitely broken, but he can deal with that later-- where is Hyperion?

A dull silver gleam shines in a tree six feet over, and Seifer drags himself toward it, limping with every step he puts on his right foot, each footfall a wave of pain that alternates with the wheeze in his chest and the scraping of at least one broken rib. His gunblade is buried a good six inches into a tree. 

Perfect. 

He gives it a test yank, decides it’s not worth the energy to try to wriggle it gently free when Xu’s clearly lost her goddamned mind behind him, and rips it out of the tree with a grunt. Sure, doing that probably only helps in tearing muscle further, but hell, he’s out of cures, out of potions, and it’s gonna take a lot more than a couple of broken bones, a rolled ankle, to keep him down. He whirls, tattered coat flaring, weapon out before him in defense-- where is she, where is she, where is the bitch?

There is no Ultimecia. 

Not even a speck of her chain-laced castle in the distant sky above them, so far up he’s kind of impressed that he survived the landing as well as he did. There’s nothing but a handful of bird calls and Xu’s indignant spluttering as he limps his way back to her, because she may be batshit crazy and ready to kill him, but at least she’s someone he knows, and hopefully she’s got at least one gun hidden under that stupid outfit, especially considering there’s no Leonhart that he can see, no Trepe, no Dincht, no Messenger Girl and that idiot cowboy with the shit aim.

“--dare you speak to me like that, I’ll have your mouth washed out with lye, your tongue pulled out, how dare you--” 

He grabs her arm again, bicep firm in his grip. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but you’ve got a squad nearby, right? Because we have to go, right now.” 

“Unhand me!” 

She wrenches at his grip, tries to dig in her heels, but there’s no force, no effort behind it-- and wasn’t her hair shorter the last time he saw her, stepping out of Balamb Garden with a sniper rifle propped up on her shoulder, aiming for his eye? He remembers it hacked to her chin. 

(The shot, he doesn’t really care about, because clearly, she missed, and Seifer doesn’t bother remembering the times people failed to kill him.)

Fuck it, he’s got more important things to worry about than Xu’s hairstyle and the fact that she’s clearly gone off the deep end once and for all (he knew it was coming, no one is that uptight all the time without eventually snapping. If he’d known pulling the stick shoved straight up her ass would have resulted in some stupid renaissance faire roleplay, Seifer would have made an effort to torment her further in their youth, just for his own amusement.)

She does not shut up as he bends, taking advantage of the distraction to hurls her over his shoulder. Seifer runs, runs as best as he can, which is nowhere near as quickly as he was going before, but the city is near, the forest is thinning out; he’s run with worse, been hit by worse, his second field exam comes to mind, hauling Trepe back to Garden with a bullet wound-- his limping gait will have to hold out until he can go somewhere and probably pass out. 

Ultimecia’s castle is no longer taunting him overhead, her mayhem ended, and either she’s dead, or Squall and company are, and Seifer really, really doesn’t want to think about what that means for him. 

Xu is screaming now, yelling for help as he crashes through the trees, into an open stretch of land that turns into the outskirts of a city that appears to be all low, graceful buildings and glassine arches; where the hell is he, wasn’t he heading for Esthar? Did he run down the wrong side of the fucking mountain and end up in Trabia? 

Either way, it’s civilization, and it’s somewhere he can hide. 

He pulls up short, though, when six very large men on six even larger birds surround him, swords drawn and all pointing at critical parts of his anatomy. Hyperion is up, ready to hack his way through the second they give him an opening-- 

“Guards, arrest this man!” Xu yells, and it’s too much, he can’t deal with her craziness anymore, dumping her onto the ground like a sack of potatoes before she manages to permanently damage his hearing with her shrieking.

It gives him a better advantage, anyway, Hyperion up in its graceful, brutal line from his fingers-- try it, assholes, try it and pay with blood. 

Whoever these guys are, they’re not SeeD. They don't wear any Garden colors, and he doesn't think Trabia's ever had chocobos as part of its cavalry, much less ones wielding blades versus a good standard-issue sidearm. 

“What the hell is going on here?” he demands. “Move! Let me through, I need to--” 

“You’re under arrest for kidnapping Her Royal Highness--” 

“Xu, call off your dogs--” 

“He assaulted me, he tried to kill--” 

“Goddammit, shut up, I didn’t try to fucking kill you--” 

He doesn’t see who hits him with the spell, only that it slams into his skull from behind, dropping him face first into the grass.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewrite of a fic I'd started in 2017 and never finished-- I've changed too much to simply edit the original version, so a repost it is! Shoutout to the people who keep going through my archives and commenting on older things, because that's the whole reason this is happening. I love you guys!


End file.
